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1 of 253523 objects
Wall hangings early 20th century
Rose-pink silk panels with coloured embroidery | RCIN 821
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Long rectangular silk embroidered wall panels. Pink silk embroidered in creams and blues with Chinese female figures strolling by water gardens. The 16 tall, vertical panels mounted in two sets of five on the side walls of what was known as the ‘Japanese Room’ at Buckingham Palace and in pairs on either side of a white marble mantelpiece which had been transferred earlier from Brighton Pavilion, with two more flanking the window opposite. Each set within a frame of gilt-wood fretwork roughly matching in style the large frame of the overmantel mirror.The embroideries depicting various figures in the celebrated garden of Xiwangmu, the legendary Daoist Queen Mother of the West, generally with two or three ladies of her court in groups, together with rare or mythical animals, such as the qilin and elephant.
Text adapted from Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: Volume III.Provenance
Possibly a gift from the Chinese imperial court. A text accompanying a photograph in the Royal Archives and headed ‘The Japanese Room’ describes a room still existing in the Private Apartments of Buckingham Palace, where the embroideries remain in situ. It states incorrectly that various features of the room are in ‘Japanese style’, and also that ‘The walls are in narrow panels of rose-ground Chinese silk embroidered in blue, a present to Queen Victoria from the Empress of China, 1897’. Charles Allom, its signatory and presumed author, and presumably the decorator responsible, with Queen Mary, for this installation before 1914, may not have been correctly informed about the exact source of the embroideries. Conceivably, they were received as a gift on another occasion, possibly the ascension of King Edward VII with Queen Alexandra in 1901. Another feature of the room is the carved hardwood ornamented mirror, which incorporates the hollyhock emblem of the Japanese Tokugawa Sho-gunate.
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Medium and techniques
Rose-pink silk panels with coloured embroidery
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